uttered by invisible beings, hovering at a height of some six or seven feet, or, perhaps, more, above the ground, and although Lieutenant O'Higgins had at first attributed these sounds to one person only, on listening attentively he fancied he could detect several different voices--all women's--and he eventually came to the conclusion that at least three or four phantasms must have been present. As he stood there listening, not knowing what else to do, the wailing and sobbing seemed to grow more and more harrowing, until it affected him so much that, hardened as he had become to all kinds of misery and violence, he, too, felt like weeping, out of sheer sympathy. However, this state of affairs did not last long, for at the sound of a musket shot (that of a sentry, as Lieutenant O'Higgins afterwards ascertained, giving a false alarm in some distant part of the camp) the wailing and sobbing abruptly and completely ceased, and was never, the Lieutenant declared, heard by him again. On mentioning the matter to one of his brother officers in the morning, the latter, no little interested and surprised, at once said: "You have undoubtedly heard the Banshee. Poor D----, who fell at Corunna, often used to tell me about it, and, you may depend upon it, there are some Irishmen in camp now, and it was their funeral dirge that you listened to." What he said proved to be quite correct, for, on inquiring, Lieutenant O'Higgins discovered three of the soldiers who had been sleeping around him that evening had Irish names, and were, unquestionably, of ancient Irish origin; and all of them perished on the bloody field of Talavera, twenty-four hours later. A story relating to an O'Farrell, who was with the Spanish in the same war, was also told me by Miss O'Higgins; but whether this O'Farrell was the famous general of that name or not I do not know. The story ran as follows:[11]